


Centre of attention

by schmetterlinq



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Rush (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/F, Post-Nürburgring, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 14:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5338097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmetterlinq/pseuds/schmetterlinq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie distracts the press from Nikki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Centre of attention

**Author's Note:**

> Just a random scenario that occured to me. Because all fandoms need more girls and more lesbians. Pre-femslash.

  
  
  


Nikki thought she was used to being ugly.

After all, she had spent her whole life ugly. One of her earliest memories was sitting at dinner, at the age of about six, and listening to her grandfather tell her parents, “Make sure she gets an education and learns a trade, because she’ll never find a man to take care of her.”

At school, the other girls would stick their front teeth out over their lower lips when she walked past. Nikki asked her parents for orthodontic treatment for Christmas. They didn’t oblige — they obviously felt it would be money wasted; that even the best dentist wouldn’t be able to save all the other problems with her face.

Her brother told her he understood, that he was ugly too, but it wasn’t the same. Women still loved Fabian, especially when they found out he had money. An ugly man might be laughed at, but an ugly woman, it seemed, had no business being on earth at all; she had failed her God-given duty, to be attractive to men.

(Her ugliness, and the way men reacted to it, wasn’t why Nikki didn't like men, contrary to what people seemed to think. She knew she was too hideous ever to get a man but that wasn’t anything to do with her desire for other women. Unlike the savagery of her ugliness and the vicious way men treated her, her thoughts about women were quiet and tender and soft.)

Nikki had thought, too, that she was used to being ugly in the world of racing, where women were taken even less seriously than they were in the rest of the world. During her very first race, a television commentator had remarked that she was “Nikki Lauda, who obviously learned all about cars because she knew she’d never have a man to fix them for her.”

At the time there’d been a few criticisms of the comment in the press, and the commentator had been forced to apologise. He’d done it very grudgingly, clearly thinking that this was why silly sensitive women shouldn’t be allowed in motorsports.

After that there’d been fewer remarks made in public — but men were always worse in private anyway. Nikki dealt with the crude jokes and the mocking stares, the way men looked straight past her at events. She thought she was a pro at it. She even thought she was a pro at being an ugly woman racing driver whose greatest rival was a girl who looked like a Playboy bunny. Jamie Hunt, with her beautiful blonde hair and effortless pout, the perfect breasts and curves she was always showing off and the photoshoots she did for Penthouse. Jamie Hunt, who Nikki had wanted to dismiss and despise, but who turned out to be as sharp as a diamond and as talented in a car as Nikki herself (not that Nikki would ever admit that out loud).

“Fuck him, Ratty,” Jamie would say, whenever a man made a less than complimentary remark about the way Nikki looked. It didn’t really make sense that Jamie could both support Nikki and tell her she looked like a rat in the same breath, but Nikki didn’t care. She didn’t mind Jamie calling her “Ratty” — if anything, it made her feel strangely warm, as though she was sitting on a radiator.

As for any of the men and their comments, she could just brush them off. Fuck them, like Jamie said. Nikki was used to it, or so she thought.

She thought she was used to it right up until she came back to Ferrari after her accident, and then she realised that she wasn’t used to it: she hadn’t even been given the tiniest glimpse of how badly people could treat her, how they could react to someone who didn’t look like they did.

Nikki was used to sideways glances and half-hidden sneers, to sarcastic questions about what she liked in a man and underhand headlines. Now, people stared at her openly when she walked through the paddock. They’d gawp as she passed, as though she was an exhibit in a freak show or a zoo. Where before Jamie had been front and centre of every photograph with Nikki barely an afterthought in the background, now close-ups of her angry red skin and the scabs forming where the burns had blistered were splashed across the front of every newspaper.

Nikki dealt with it, without saying anything, like she always did. She ignored it. She didn’t want to get special treatment, she didn’t want to make a fuss — she just wanted to race.

But after one race, towards the end of the season, they were heading out of the garages when she spotted the waiting press and the poised cameras, and suddenly she just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t like she didn't expect them to be there. It wasn’t like she hadn't already been through several weekends of this; it wasn’t like it could ever be any worse than the first weekend back, that first press conference, when she focused on the pain to distract herself from the stares, the questions, the camera flashes. But somehow, in that moment, she couldn’t take any more of it, and she stopped walking.

Clay didn’t notice straight away and carried on, but Jamie stopped beside her instantly. She didn’t ask – she didn’t need to. The two of them could read each other easily; Jamie could predict what Nikki would say, where Nikki would go on the track, almost as though she could hear Nikki's thoughts. Usually it was infuriating, but in that moment, Nikki was grateful for it.

(Nikki barely recognised anything in her life these days. Some things were familiar, but none of them were quite the same. People spoke quieter, edged away from her and looked at her out of the corners of their eyes, as though near-death experiences were catching. Jamie was the only thing that was entirely the same. She was loud, and boisterous, and arrogant, and she showed up at the garage to goad Nikki about her ever-increasing points. They hadn’t had any time together in private since the accident – all Nikki's time away from the paddock was spent at hospital – but Nikki wasn’t even afraid of it – she knew that Jamie would treat her as she always did.)

Ahead of them, Clay noticed he was alone and doubled back. “What's the matter?”

Nikki closed her eyes for a second, and then nodded towards the doors.

Clay glanced over, saw the assembled press and said, “Oh.”

Jamie had been quiet, but when Clay spoke, she suddenly sprang to life. She snatched the water bottle out of Clay's hand and started marching purposefully towards the doors, towards the gathered media.

“I was drinking that!” Clay protested uselessly.

Jamie spun round to walk backwards away from them. She didn’t answer Clay; she just grinned and said, “You two wait here.”

Before Nikki could wonder what she was going to do, Jamie was out of the doors, and the press descended on her. They were so loud Nikki could hear them even inside: “Jamie!” “Jamie, over here!” “Jamie, could we get a minute?” “Jamie, what did you think of today's race?” “Jamie, tell us your thoughts on the result!” “Jamie!” “Jamie!”

Jamie posed in front of them, tossing her golden hair. “It was a good race,” she purred. “So good. But it's always hard when it's so hot...”

In one smooth movement, she pushed her fireproofs down to her waist, revealing the white tank top she had on underneath, and then up-ended Clay's bottle of water over her head.

The effect on the journalists and photographers was instantaneous. Suddenly there was nobody else on the entire planet except Jamie Hunt and the water she was pouring over her head.

“Let's go.” Clay grabbed Nikki's arm, and Nikki blinked herself out of the slight stupor induced by seeing Jamie soaking wet. They scurried out of one of the side doors and into their waiting cars, completely ignored by the assembled press, who were still baying at Jamie like bloodhounds and flashing their cameras as though she was the second coming of Christ.

Nikki glanced out of the window as she buckled herself into her seat. Jamie was smirking, and pouting lazily at the photographers, pushing her wet hair back off her face like a model, oh-so-casually letting her hands trail down her chest so that her nipples hardened. When she moved her hands away, Nikki could see that Jamie wasn’t wearing a bra.

Jamie caught Nikki’s eye through the car window and winked. Nikki rolled her eyes back, although she could feel herself throb between her legs.

She could, she thought, fall on Jamie when they next saw each other, kiss her and thank her tearfully for what she had done. She wouldn’t, of course — that wasn’t like Nikki at all, and anyway Jamie knew, because they could always read each other.

Nikki sat back in her seat, leaving Jamie to entertain the press. “To the hotel,” she told her driver. “To my hotel, my hotel.”

 

 

Fin


End file.
